The present invention is directed to burners in general and more specifically to a high-temperature burner assembly.
Prior art burner assemblies include those which are disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,368,370. Such prior art burner assemblies have been beneficial for a number of different uses, including the heat treating of metals, and over a wide range of temperatures up to approximately 1750.degree. F. Moreover, such furnaces have included features such as a sufficient turndown range to render such furnace available for multiple uses.
In recent years, and especially in particularized applications such as the glass-making art, it has been necessary to provide a furnace having the capacity to produce temperatures of up to 5000.degree. F., but to do so without severely diminishing burner life, further to do so without the undue complication of providing for water cooling mechanisms. Moreover, to provide such temperatures, and to do so without the formation of any substantial amount of carbon build-up on the burner mechanism, has likewise been necessary, as carbon build-up would contaminate the glass or other sensitive material being heat processed.
In view of the above deficiencies and difficulties with the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved high-temperature burner assembly which will materially diminish such prior art difficulties, and which will do so by providing structure which will function to delay flame combustion for a few micro-seconds in order to move the flame away from the burner surface, and thus to increase the useful working life of the burner, and reduce any contamination therefrom.
It has also been an object of the improved high-temperature burner assembly of the present invention to provide a unique gas orifice shape which provides no substantially available surface on which carbon may accumulate during the burning thereof.
It has been a yet further object of the improved high-temperature burner assembly of the present invention to provide a gas orifice structure which will produce temperatures in excess of up to 5000.degree. F., but which will permit the surrounding portions of the structure to remain at substantially lower temperatures, thereby to lengthen the burner life substantially.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon review of the following summary of the invention, brief description of the drawing, detailed description of preferred embodiments, the appended claims, and the accompanying drawing.